In the infomercial Wednesday, Michelle Obama told how Barack read all of the Harry Potter books to his daughter. I wonder if they realized that they’d meandered into a culture war mine field.
The Harry Potter books were extemely controversial in evangelical circles when they came out. Many attacked them for glamorizing or encouraging witchcraft. There’s still a few days left for McCain to cut a new ad about Obama being Soft on Witches. Since Sarah Palin was blessed by an anti-witchcraft pastor, the McCain-Palin ticket can justifiably lay claim to being more anti-Witch than Obama. (“Barack Obama is willing to sit down with Voldemort without preconditions…”)
But I wasn’t sure if the anti-Potter sentiment was still strong so I asked our Christianity editor, Patton Dodd, whose brilliant new blog “Text Messages” represents well the thinking of the new generation of evangelical leaders. His verdict: evangelicals over 40 will hate that Obama digs Harry, and those under 40 will like/love it. On balance, he generalized, “I’d say moderate evangelicals are Potter fans.”